Johannesburg: Free screening of "Bil'in My Love" & talk by the Palestine Solidarity Committee

southern africa | imperialism / war | other libertarian press Saturday February 27, 2010 15:19 by A - The Unblinking Eye

This coming week is Israel Apartheid Week, a week during which people around the world unite in protest against the brutal oppression of the Palestinian people in Gaza and elsewhere.

In support of this great initiative, we have decided to host this week's screening in collaboration with the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, who will be at the event to discuss the current situation, history and underlying issues of the conflict.

Our documentary is 'Bil'in My Love', a moving film about the nonviolent struggle in the West Bank village of Bil’in against construction of the Israeli separation wall.

Here's a brief synopsis:

"The film opens in early 2005 to the scream of a chainsaw as Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers cut the branches of olive trees. The owner of the grove, a Palestinian man later identified as Wagee, rushes over, shouting, “Why? Why the olive trees?” The trees have been in his family for literally hundreds of years and remain one of the few sources of income left for his family. The IDF soldiers ignore Wagee’s cries and forcibly contain him and his family inside their home, where they watch through the iron bars of their windows as their orchard is destroyed.

This destruction was declared necessary by the IDF to make space for the West Bank separation wall. Bil’in is located four kilometers (2.4 miles) east of the 1967 internationally recognized border between Israel and Palestine. According to “Bil’in Habibti,” however, even though “the International Court in The Hague declared the barrier route illegal, the government goes on building, claiming the route is only temporary and when peace comes the barrier will be removed. In fact the government fills the annexed area with new settlements and creates an irreversible situation.”

About half of Bil’in’s land was lost in this “security” land grab, after which Israeli developers immediately began constructing government-subsidized high-rise apartments in a new neighborhood of the West Bank settlement called Mattiyahu East. The village of Bil’in fell victim to a confluence of economic, political, strategic and religious goals.

And so the men, women and children of Bil’in organized. The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall directed the grassroots resistance that held weekly peaceful protests against the wall’s construction.

This film presents the people of Bil’in as thoughtful and passionate objectors to the new wall and the arbitrary punishments inflicted by the IDF. Side by side with Israeli and international activists, the people of Bil’in used creative tactics of civil disobedience by crossing the arbitrary “no pass zones,” attempting to dismantle the illegal barrier, chaining themselves to trees to stop the bulldozers, and even erecting their own fence.

The protests invariably are met with harsh tactics: tear gas, rubber bullets, sound bombs, beatings and arrests. In a nonviolent campaign, however, such a response is expected. Explained one young protester from Bil’in, “You aim to get hit so the whole world will see you are hit. When it is your nonviolence against their violence, you win.”

After a year of protests, “Bil’in Habibti” ends with no resolution. Even as the campaign goes on, the wall is almost complete, the village’s legal case is tied up in Israeli courts and there is no guarantee that the struggle of the villagers of Bil’in will afford them any justice or measure of peace."

Please join us for this important event.

Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Time: 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: The Bridge Diner, 51 Juta Str., Braamfontein, JHB